Kimberly Pauley

Ze random…it haz me.

I kind of miss being odd and random. Before I was all official-y and published-y, I had a blog I called Blerg (which I’ve mostly imported in over here, so if you read through old old old posts you’ll see) and I just wrote about pretty much whatever. Whenever. Sometimes multiple times a day, sometimes once a week, sometimes once a month. Poetry (both bad and good), restaurant reviews, notes to myself, whatever happened that day, whatever bee had crawled up in my bonnet…just whatever.

I don’t really do that anymore. I’ve tried to be more professional and just talk mostly about writer-ly things here.

I’m kinda bored with that.

And I don’t tend to post as much, either, since now I’m always trying to think up something that means something or is useful (ha, ha, it is to laugh) and heaven knows we all know how hard that is.

So I think I’m going to be a little bit more me around here. Just to warn you. In case you pop in one day and read a post and go Huh?

There will probably be a lot of parentheses involved. And more than a few ellipses. And italics. But you might have noticed that already.

In general life news, my older sister and her son went home today. They’d been visiting for a week and it was interesting to be hanging around with a fifteen year old boy for that long. Just sayin’. My sister’s other kids are girls (17 and 11) and I don’t think she’s quite mentally prepared for having a teenage boy. (is anyone?) She wants him to talk about stuff. Like feelings. All the time. The Max is only two, but I already know that isn’t going to fly when he’s fifteen. But I think I’m kind of a weird adult. I actually remember a lot about what it felt like to be a teenager. Which is maybe why I write for them (wow. did you see that? totally made a point that probably actually belongs on this blog.).

"Fast Thumbs" Ryan, My sis Lisa, The Max, The Hubster & Me -- Note that Lisa got the height in the family.

We had a good time though, Ryan’s texting addiction aside. We hit all the big Chicago stuff since they’d never been here before. Even did some stuff I hadn’t done before, like the Water Taxi on the Chicago river. I did learn that The Max has no issue whatsoever with heights yet. He walked right out onto the Plexiglas room (or whatever it’s made of) at the Sears Tower (technically the Willis tower now, but I refuse to call it that) on the 103 floor with no problem.

Max 103 Stories up

And I always love visiting The Bean. I mean, it’s the BEAN.

The Max & Me under the Bean

Posted in Personal, life as we know it, pictures, randomness | 1 Comment »

Too many topics to come up with a good post name

So…it’s been a very busy, very crazy time in the Pauley household. The Max’s Nana (my hubby’s mom) and his cousin Cameron (yes, the one that Cameron in the book is named after!) came to visit for a week. We went ALL over, from dinner at the Signature Room on the 95th Floor of the John Hancock building to Lake Michigan (via beach in Racine, WI) to Medieval Times in Schaumburg, IL. It was a good time, but I’m totally worn out now! But I’d better pull it together soon since my older sister and her son are coming to visit on the 20th! (Then we’ve got more visits after that, with my in-Laws and my younger sister & her hubby). Very, very busy summer.

In the current book news (working title: Cat Girl Saves the Day), I’m still working on it. *sigh* I wanted it to be done by the end of June but that didn’t happen. It’s so very, very, very close though. I’ve got about 1/2 a chapter to the end and then some additions/corrections I need to make in the earlier chapters. So it *is* almost there. Almost. I’m hoping this week, if I can fit in writing between working my way through the mountain of laundry that seems to plague all the authors I know and doctor appointments and…

An Author Visit!

I’ll be at Glendale Heights at the Glenside Public Library tomorrow at 7 PM where I’ll be talking about writing and will even have VISUAL AIDS. No, I’m not bringing any funny bats. But I will have marked up copies of the first book so you can see what a manuscript looks like once your editor is done with it (Oh the red! Oh my eyes!) and other cool stuff. I’ll also be giving away tattoos and bookmarks and stuff. And who knows…if enough people are there, I’ll give away an STBM vase too… So, if you live in Northern Illinois, please do come by!

Where was I?

Oh yes…the craziness that’s my life. There’s also some really BIG BIG news that I can’t talk about yet. Life-changing stuff. Driving-me-crazy-stuff.

But I can’t talk about any of that.

But I CAN talk about where I am with picking winners of the Launch contest. I know, it’s been a month since the contest ended. I should’ve announced winners already. Besides going to ALA and having guests, I have no real excuse other than that it has been INCREDIBLY hard narrowing it down. First I went through all the entries and narrowed it down to a group of finalists. Then I sent those out to my guest judges. Then I tabulated the results. I marked my favorites (as well as the one Cameron gave a vote to while he was visiting). Then I noticed that two of the finalists were pretty close to each other, so I emailed them asking if, should they happen to win, a joint event would be feasible/possible. I just heard back from them (literally while I was typing this up) that they could do a joint event, so I’m going to be posting a FINAL poll for the Grand Prize so YOU can help me pick. Because I can’t narrow it down any farther. I just can’t. You guys are too awesome.

I am also going to award some additional runners-up prizes. Namely some Skype visits with me + swag packs (bookmarks, etc.). Honestly, I wish I could visit every single one of you! But I can’t afford it. Heck, after all this vacation-ing, I can’t afford anything!

Anyway, stay tuned for more on that soon (as in the next half hour).

Posted in Author Appearances, Personal, Writing, randomness | No Comments »

Blue Hair!

Okay, how did I manage to make a post yesterday talking about my new blue hair but not actually showing a picture of it? Probably the distraction of the sausage foot.

So, here you go…blue hair!

It proved very popular with the young girls at our neighborhood barbecue over the weekend. And my niece Rachael wants to do it now (but my sister, her mom, won’t let her). I guess I’d be one of “those” moms, since I’d let my kid color their hair any color they wanted. I just draw the line at stuff that’s permanent. So I’m putting you on notice now, little Max — no forked tongues or really crazy piercings, but feel free to go purple if that floats your boat.

Honestly, I wish I’d done crazy hair when I was a teenager or at least in my 20s. This is my first certifiable “crazy” hair (and it’s really not *that* crazy). I suppose I’m at a point in my life where it really doesn’t bother me at all what other people think. In high school, I still definitely cared.

Yeah, that’s the kind of stuff you wish you could go back in time and tell your earlier self about. That, and start exercising early.

Posted in Personal | 7 Comments »

My ALA Curse & Launch contest update

So, every time ALA rolls around I get all excited. This is my third one, but I’m still all giddy like a schoolgirl (and just what does that mean, anyway? I don’t remember being particularly giddy when I was in school).

However.

Every time I go to ALA, some disfiguring nastiness occurs. The first one, a sty in my eye. I’d never even had one before in my entire life, but here was my lower eyelid, all red and puffy and swollen. I had the plague eye. And, you know, the fact that I was still carrying a bunch of after-baby fat around (The Max was only about 3 or 4 months old at that point).

Last year, I had a very lovely pimple that was the size of New Jersey. And then The Max got bit by a spider or something in our hotel room — right by his eye — and it swelled up and turned red. He looked like a boxer who’d lost a fight. Try walking around with a one year old that looks like that and see what kind of looks you get.

This year? Well, this year I have blue hair (which is on purpose and rather lovely, if I do say so myself). But I also have a collection of red welts on my arms and legs from a deer fly attack a WEEK AND A HALF AGO plus, at the moment, a foot swollen to 3 times it’s normal size because a hornet bit me yesterday. I haz sausage foot. I’m not sure if I can even wear any shoes other than flip flops right now.

It’s my ALA curse.

So, if you go, and you see some poor little short half-Asian author person limping around and looking like a plague victim, that would be me.

In other news, I’ve narrowed down the Launch Contest entries to some finalists and have some volunteer judges going through those to determine the winners. I should be announcing them shortly! Can’t wait to meet you, whoever you are, O Grand Prize winner!

Posted in Personal, argh | 2 Comments »

Introducing the “Real” Cameron

Visiting Brookfield Zoo with Cam

So, I’d like all of you to meet my nephew, Cameron, who let me borrow his name for Still Sucks to Be Me (for a very important character, no less). Cam is my husband’s sister’s middle child. I was a middle child myself. He’s got an older brother named Christian and a younger sister named Kylie. (For the record, my older sister is Lisa and my younger sister is Pam).

The character of Cameron in the book is, of course, older than Cameron my nephew. And his hair color is a little different and, well, Cameron (the original) isn’t a vampire so far as I know. They are both super cute though! Just ask all the girls in my neighborhood who suddenly started hanging out by my house when Cameron came to visit!

The Max LOVES all of his cousins, but is especially fond of Cameron. He still talks about playing with him when he sees pictures. Of course, that would partly be because he LOVES playing in water. This picture was when we were all in downtown Chicago at the famous fountain in Millennium Park.

The Max, Nana, & Cameron

I was thinking it would be cool to interview Cam to see what he thinks of having a character in a book named after him and I was wondering if you guys had any questions for him too?

Here’s the questions I’ve got so far:

• Is it weird to see your name in a book? Especially knowing the character was named after you?
• Can you tell my readers a little about the “REAL” Cameron?
• What are your favorite hobbies?
• What’s your favorite book?
• Who’s your favorite band?

Post more! If I think of some more, I’ll add them too, and then I’ll send them off to the “real” Cameron.

Posted in Just for Fun, Personal, pictures | 4 Comments »

Signing, winning, waiting…

So, I finally got a chance to go to a bookstore yesterday to see Still Sucks to Be Me in the wild. We went to the Barnes & Noble in Vernon Hills, IL, so if you’re around there and you’re looking for a signed copy, they’ve got some now. I’d checked their website before we went to make sure they actually had some in stock. They had it shelved both under New Releases (yay!) and in the regular YA section. They even had one copy of the paperback Sucks to Be Me! I was happy to see that there too. I left them some bookmarks too.

It’s still such a thrill to see my books in a store (ha! look! I got to say “books” plural!). Way down deep inside? I really still can’t believe that I’m actually published. I’m not sure if that will ever wear off.

Now comes the long wait to see how the book is doing. I’m lucky in that my publisher actually sends out statements every quarter instead of just twice a year. So I only have to wait until around the end of July/beginning of August to see my first statement. Of course, once I get the statement, I still don’t *really* know what it means, but at least then I’ll have some kind of an idea and this time I can compare it to my first statement from Sucks to Be Me. I don’t even have a clue what the initial print run was.

Hopefully, if it does well, I’ll have the opportunity to write a third Mina book (the title of which would be Sucks to Be Moi…which gives you a hint at where it will be set…). There will be a lot of Cameron in the third book and, you know, drama. Since Mina’s always got that in her life.

Which reminds me — hey! If you’ve read the book, can you review it on Amazon (or anywhere, for that matter)? Supposedly that makes a difference.

Me? I’m trying not to spend too much time Googling new reviews.

And don’t forget, the Still Sucks to Be Me Launch contest is still ongoing until June 11th! Please spread the word!

Posted in Personal | 2 Comments »

Ah, tomorrow…

So tomorrow I will officially be a more than one book author. Officially not a one-hit wonder (well, not exactly what I mean, but you get the idea).

I’ve got a lot of author-y friends who’ve published a bunch of books. Some of them in the double-digits. I wonder…does it ever get old? I don’t see how it could.

In some ways I’m actually more excited than the first time. Kind of. And kind of more stressed too.

Anyway, if you buy a copy of Still Sucks to Be Me, how about sending me a picture? Or even if you just spot it out in a store. I’d love to see it out in the wild…

And if you read it? Hope you like it.

Posted in Personal | 1 Comment »

Do the Write Thing for Nashville (and maybe have dinner with me)

So, remember Myra McEntire? I’ve mentioned Myra before, right? She’s a writing buddy of mine and she’s awesome, but that’s not why I’m bringing her up today. Today, I’m talking about her because she lives in the Nashville area.

You know, where they just had an absolutely epic flood. Bazillions of dollars in damage. People stranded. Homes destroyed. Landmarks destroyed.

Well, Myra and some other local TN authors got together and started something called Do the Write Thing for Nashville. They started taking donations from fellow publishing people (authors, editors, agents, etc.) and auctioning them off, with the proceeds going to a flood relief charity.

Did I mention how incredible some of these auctions are? Stuff like Lisa McMann flying anywhere in the US (anywhere near a big city, anyway) to have lunch with you. Full manuscript critiques from some of the most awesome agents and editors in the business. Tons of signed books from authors too various and amazing to mention individually. Someone even has a custom quilt up there, made to order just for you. Jewelry. A Clothespin Dolly Parton Doll (no, I am not making that up).

And my own contribution:

Signed hardback copies of Sucks to Be Me + Still Sucks to Be Me plus assorted book swag (bookmarks, temporary tattoos, etc.) plus a 30 – 45 minute Skype Video Chat (to talk about writing or Johnny Depp or whatever OR I’ll do a presentation to a school or library of your choosing) plus a VERY limited edition (only 24 made!) Sucks to Be Me hand-etched and hand-painted batty bottle.

Tags: do the write thing for nashville
Posted in Personal | No Comments »

I’m home!

Whew! That was a whirlwind visit to China we had. I’ll post more about it later…right now I’m trying to catch up on all the stuff that piled up while we were gone! There were a lot of Internet things I couldn’t access from China so now I’m wading through it all.

If anyone is interested you can view all the many, many photos I took on Flickr.

Then, after we got back, we went to Delaware for a wedding. I barely know what time zone I’m in. Heck, I barely know what continent I’m on!

It’s good to be back, though. And I’m getting ready to dive back into my new manuscript. I’d really like to finish it up in the next month or two (hopefully by the end of June). More on that later…

Posted in Personal | 2 Comments »

Sheshan: An adventure beyond downtown Shanghai

So I’d read about this cool sculpture park on an expat website and thought it would make a nice day trip. It’s still in Shanghai, but on the outskirts and definitely far from downtown. So we braved the subway for the first time (was easy; no problems at all and Max was excited to ride the train) and went down there.

We should perhaps have been warned that this wasn’t going to be easy by the fact that none of the three guidebooks we have mentions this place (which is a shame, since it’s really cool). We disembarked from the Metra station with high hopes and no idea where exactly the park was (okay, we had an address…but we only had it in English, not Chinese). But we saw a billboard for the Sculpture Park (along with — and here’s the key thing — a bunch of other resort-ish park-ish types of things). We at first walked a bit and found someone who told us to take a bus. 92, he said. We couldn’t find such a bus, but we found a taxi and told him we wanted to go to the Sculpture Park. He didn’t understand us at all and wound up taking us to Happy Valley, which was apparently where everyone else who had gotten off the train was going. It’s some kind of amusement park with roller coasters, etc. Looks like fun, but not what we were going for.

After five tries, we found someone who spoke some English and/or could understand our little bit of Chinese. She helpfully wrote down the name (we thought) of the Sculpture Park for us. We found another taxi and showed him what she had given us. He took us to the Forest Park. We thought we were perhaps at the Sculpture Park since there’s no way to tell from the entrance gate, but we figured it out after we got in. We did wander there for a little while (it was nice and Max had fun walking the stairs and trails) and we even saw a dinosaur exhibit with friendly people. One fellow there did speak some English and he told us that the Sculpture Park was too far to walk and was to the left and we should get another taxi.

We wound up walking down one path until we came to the edge of the park and found ourselves in a town type of area. So we exited there since it looked like we were more likely to find a taxi there than where we’d come in. There were some hotel people standing outside (like fancy hotel people) so we figured they might speak a little English. Not sure if they did or not, but they seemed to understand what we were looking for and even gave us a little map, which was all in Chinese. We hopped on a rickshaw-ish motorized bike with a guy and he took us on our way.

And Woot! We were at the Sculpture Park! Then he charged us entirely too much, but at that point we didn’t really care. We were happy to be there. The park was really very cool and quite large. It’s around lake Yue Hu (Moon Lake) and there are over 30 large sculpture installations. What we didn’t expect and worked out really well for us is that some of the park is perfect for kids. Besides a beach (which The Max LOVED…he went right for the sand and kept saying “I walk on beach!”), there was a water play area (too cold to go in, sadly, but it looked really cool), a giant tree house, and the Fuwa Fuwa Dome which is the coolest thing ever. Really. Max would probably faint from joy if we could put one in the backyard.

It’s kind of a bouncy jumpy dome-ish thing that’s filled with air. Think moon walk, but much cooler. You can bounce and slide on it, roll around, whatever you want. All the adults loved it too. And The Max? He was in heaven. Fuwa Fuwa is from Japanese and means “fluffy” and the sculpture was apparently designed by a Japanese guy. From the quick web search I did, it looks like there are other ones. We need one in the States because it is the coolest thing ever.

The Max on the Fuwa Fuwa Dome

We also ate at the park at a really nice place (had some yummy dim sum and they even had fries for Max). Oh, and they had the coolest, nicest bathrooms at the Sculpture Park. The best we’ve seen in China. Or just about anywhere, actually. And if you’ve seen bathrooms in China, you’d know why this is exciting. They even had a baby changer!

We grabbed a taxi back to the train station (after a false start — even after we said train and showed him the word train in Chinese in our guidebook and he took us to the forest park…but then he called someone who spoke English and they translated for us…I’m not sure what more we could have done, but he was friendly about it) and made our way back to the hotel. It was about 5 PM by that time, so we skipped the rest of our plans for the day (a temple festival) and collapsed with one very tired Max.

It’s 10:50 PM here now (I woke up about an hour ago and am going to go back to sleep after I finish typing this up) and I’m pretty sure Max is going to wake up sometime between 2:30 and 4:30. He’s been waking up around then every night, poor guy. The time change thing isn’t working out that well for him, but he’s been a big trooper. And that Fuwa Fuwa Dome might have made this the best day ever for him.

I uploaded some of the pictures from today over at Flickr.

Tags: fuwa fuwa dome, shanghai sculpture park
Posted in Personal, pictures | 6 Comments »